The applicants herein have contemporaneously filed related applications entitled Impact Absorbing Truck Grille Guard and Articulation Controlling Apparatus.
This invention relates to highway trucks. More particularly, this invention relates to structure and apparatus adapted for attachment to truck front end bumper and chassis structures for support of truck grille guards.
Common configurations of heavy trucks and truck-tractors impose multiple demands upon the design of brackets intended for mounting of metal radiator protecting guard frames. Such truck""s radiator grille cover and rearwardly lying radiator are primary structures to be protected by such grille guard. The forward end of a truck""s engine cowl occupies the space most advantageously utilized for mounting support of a truck grille guard. However, truck engine cowls, which commonly include a radiator protecting grille cover, are typically constructed of lightweight material and lack the strength necessary for support of a guard frame. Thus, truck grille guards must be mechanically inconveniently supported in a cantilevered fashion in front of a truck""s radiator grille cover without utilizing the truck""s cowl as structural support.
Mounting of a grille guard in front of a truck""s cowl is further complicated by such cowl""s capacity for forwardly pivoting for engine access, such pivoting motion extending the cowl through the space which is necessarily occupied by a grille guard. Thus, a grille guard mount, while providing firm cantilevered base support of a grille guard, but must also facilitate either pivoting motion or removal of the grille guard to allow opening of the truck""s cowl. Ideally, a grille guard mount facilitates pivoting motion of the grille guard, avoiding inconvenient grille guard assembly and disassembly steps.
The instant inventive truck grille guard provides a solution to design demands outlined above by providing a combination of upwardly opening, rearwardly opening and forwardly opening clevises adapted for nestingly receiving common truck bumper, chassis, and wheel support structures, and adopted for receiving and articulating a metal frame truck grille guard.
The instant inventive truck grille guard mounting bracket comprises a first laterally elongated and upwardly opening clevis having a front arm, and having a rear arm. Preferably, the front arm of said first clevis comprises a flat bumper mounting plate adapted for fixed attachment to the flat front surface of a truck bumper. Suitably, though less desirably, the front arm of the first laterally elongated clevis may comprise a rigid rectangular frame.
The distal end of the rear arm of the first clevis is preferably adapted for fixed attachments to structures which commonly reside immediately to the rear of a truck""s bumper, such as truck chassis members, truck spring hangers, or a truck tow hook arm. By securely mounting the distal end of the rearward arm of the first clevis to such common truck structures, and by securely mounting the preferred front arm mounting plate of such clevis to the truck""s bumper, the front arm of the first clevis is adapted to serve as a secure base for cantilevered attachment and support of a truck grille guard.
Preferably, the rear arm of the first clevis comprises a plurality of second clevises, each second clevis preferably being adapted for nesting receipt of and fixed attachment to a truck chassis member or to a truck spring hanger.
The instant inventive truck grille guard mounting bracket preferably further comprises a plurality of forwardly opening third clevises, each extending forwardly from the front arm of the first clevis, the third clevises being adapted for pivoting attachment of a lower end of a truck grille guard.
The instant inventive truck grille guard preferably further comprises a plurality of fourth clevises overlying the third devises and similarly extending forwardly from the forward arm of the first clevis, each fourth clevis being adapted for pivoting attachment of a pivot stopping articulating guy or arm, and for securing a grille guard attached as described above, in an upwardly articulated or pivoted impact absorbing position.
Preferably, each clevis among the second, third, and fourth pluralities of devises has a left arm and a right arm, the left and right arms being formed integrally from a plurality of left and right xe2x80x9cUxe2x80x9d brackets.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a truck grille guard mounting bracket configured as a combination of clevises which are adapted and oriented for secure mounting support of a truck grille guard upon the forward end of a truck, and for facilitating articulating or pivoting motion of such grille guard.